Sunday, 29 June 2014

As mentioned in my last post I had completed the GHQ shovel. Whilst not a hard kit to put together the real tricky bits are the pistons that control the arm as these can be a real headache to get correct. having said that this kit has turned out ok.
A spray of Tamiya Bright Orange, a coat of dull coat and a wash with Van dyke Brown oil paint and a couple of light applications of Tamiya Panel Line Accent Paint and its ready to sit in the construction area. Wait I have no construction area.
Now that all of these GHQ kits are almost complete I have decided that a small asphalt paved area needs to be made adjoining the Augusta East yard tracks. This is a nothing area and as it was completed many years ago it is indeed in need of an upgrade.

This is the completed GHQ shovel.

After the unit was sprayed Bright Orange I painted the tracks rust with a light dry brush of silver followed by a wash of black.

And this is the area beside the Augusta East yard tracks where the units will be housed once the area goes through its makeover.

I also had most of the crew over on Friday night for one of my regular last Friday of the Month operating sessions. As it was two months since the last (we were on vacation when the May session was planned) I thought I should clean the track and loco wheels. I'm very pleased I did as I was surprised that the track was a bit grimy but it was the locos wheels that really surprised.

For too many years to recall I have been using Zippo Lighter fluid to clean my track and wheels as too have many of my friends. We find it works really well. I have recently purchased some new cotton cloth from the local Spotlight store only this time found some much thinner than that I was using previously. Obviously the last lot of cloth was just too thick as when using the new lot my wheels have never looked better. I am surmising that the old cloth was not getting right into the radius of the wheels and thus leaving a large amount of gunk in place. The new cloth looked really dirty with really black track marks where the dirt had come off the wheels after cleaning the locos. Strong evidence that I should have been checking better and something to put in the memory bank.
Here is a few shots of the ops session, apologies for those not represented

Big John at the dispatchers desk. John is the proud owner of the SF Boise City Sub.

Little John at Augusta (he's not really that tall) Owns the UP Oregon Sub.

Barry at Hackney pondering his next move with the Aug /Hac /Aug Grain. Barry purchased Thompson River Canyon from Vic and Myself several years ago.

Greg ( he owns the L&N Knoxville division ) is at Ponca City pondering his next move with the Fln / Pon / Fln Sweeper. There is not a lot of room to move at Ponca so one has to think very carefully about how to achieve the move and not hold up the main.

Dennis and Noel worked Flynn Yard. Noel is not in the picture. You can just make out Vic's cap, he was just departing with the Fln / Aug Through freight. Dennis is in the process of building a very fine N Scale layout whilst Noel is the owner of the West Coast Mining RR in N scale.

Ron (the owner of the GC&SF RR ) is watching over the dispatchers shoulder.

Me, well I was the dispatcher for a while and Mr Fixit for the rest of the night. Somebody has to do it.
More next time on the SFRSD.
Rod.

Tuesday, 24 June 2014

I thought it was about time to get back and add another post since its been quiet a while since my last post.
Winter has set in here in Melbourne gusts of wind yesterday up to 125 kilometers an hour 10 degrees C with a wind chill down to 4 degrees so apart from driving up to Brisbane and back four weeks ago not that much has been happening as we have been staying in doors.
I am however working on some recently purchased GHQ kits. A shovel, Low loader, a D8Cat bulldozer, a Cab over Freightliner and another Grain Trailer. (Well you cannot have enough grain trailers in Kansas). The shovel is complete including painting, the low loader is well under way as too the bulldozer.

I have sprayed this with Tamiya Brilliant Orange, Dullcoated then a wash of VanDyke Brown.

More bits to add to this

Apart from these I have been weathering some more locomotives. John a good friend and I attended the Plastic Modellers Exhibition held over the long weekend in June. It is always worth a visit to see how folk model plastic planes, ships, trucks and cars along with the military modellers who always impress. Some of the models on display were outstanding with just so much detail. I have always enjoyed looking at the military models. The way they can make these models look just so realistic is amazing. So I have often wondered why the military modelers and model railroad modelers haven't got together to share ideas I think we could learn a lot more about how to weather our locomotives and rolling stock. Then there is the vast range of paints and powders that are available that the military modelers have available to help create such masterpieces.
A weathering clinic was about to start so John and I grabbed a front row seat and watched as this young fellow rusted up the back of a pre-painted tank using Tamiya panel line paint and weathering powders. The grills on this tank just popped. Granted it is a larger scale than I am accustomed to but I thought that some of these techniques could be applied to my locos.
The panel paint comes in three colours, Black, Dark Brown and Brown so I purchased one bottle of each.

So far I have used mostly the Black and Dark Brown in the grills and fans on about 6 locomotives. This makes the job of blackening the grills so fast it is done in minutes. You might recall in my last post that it took me about one hour to mask up one Alco Locomotive to spray the grills on a locomotive I was spraying for a friend. Well that job is history I will be using this technique from now on.

Here is a shot of a highly weathered SD 45 that I had previously painted and decaled for the failed merger between the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific RR's. I had previously dulled down the body of the loco with a light spray of flat white and thought this would be a good candidate for a test run.

I used the Tamiya Panel Paint on the grills, fans, truck side frames and around the roof and the roof mounted air conditioner.

I applied the panel paint very carefully in small amounts around the doors and door latches, around the turbo shroud and around the battery box doors. It is hard to see the difference in my rather poor images however on the RR it looks fantastic, I am very pleased.
I also added some Pan Pastel rust powder along the roof and on some of the fans and grills. A small dab of rust under the battery box and she was ready to put back into service, shabby but now she really looks like she has well and truly earned here keep on the SFRSD.